


Euphoria

by hands0me_rhys



Category: Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Desperation, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Heartache, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Past Polyamorous Relationship(s), Past Relationship(s), Rough Kissing, Tenderness, vigilante joker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 19:13:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14195847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hands0me_rhys/pseuds/hands0me_rhys
Summary: Bruce didn't know love.He knew desperation in human contact. He knew fleeting nights, and exchanges of sex for partnership. He knew blistering nails on agitated skin. He knew something soft, something almost good, until it flickered out like a flame to the wind.Bruce didn't know love. Not until John.





	Euphoria

"John _—_ "

He hadn't meant to say his name, then, when Joker had one knife halfway to his jugular and the other prickling at the padded armor over his shoulder. Bruce had refrained from calling him by name, because that was what  _John_ had wanted when this began. They're compact in this nook of a room, and along the way Joker had slammed the door shut to prevent an easily accessible escape.

Bruce's only concern had been Tiffany and Waller, and not himself. It was never himself. In some morbid twist of fate, he's glad it was him at the blunt of this. The twist in John's expression was instantaneous, and the struggle is vibrant in his posture. Bruce took the opening, and planted his boot at the flush of his abdomen and rushed all of his force into it.

It was almost purposeful, when Joker slammed back against the desk, displaced panels crushed under his weight. Metal clattered to the ground, and all Bruce could see was  _John, John, John._ Batman wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't spare another moment to subdue him, but Bruce was.. he was emotional. _Impulsive_. _Desperate_. He yearned for something that the Bat could never understand.

That was one of many mistakes Bruce has come to known; vulnerability.

Joker dragged him from the murkiness of his mind, and Bruce could feel pain pulsing at his thigh when he came to the realization that he'd been stabbed. He growled, purely feral and cursing the frailty of human flesh. He doesn't even pull it out, instead slamming John's wrist against the panel, and gravitating to stop the oncoming blow of his other fist. 

"You don't get to  _just.."_ John uttered it, viably lost, his expression interchangeable, the same way it had before. Bruce could barely make out what was left of his friend when he'd taken Waller, and now, it was as if nothing had changed. Bruce's breath was ragged, his pulse rocketing, and his body trembling despite his efforts to still. "Don't do this." Bruce wavered in tone, verging on tearful, "..Please, don't do _this_."

There's a pause, before Joker laughed. It ate away at Bruce's heart.  _I wanted to be loved by you._ "Too late. It's too late for that, right? I killed those agents. You _saw_ me do it." Bruce was taken off guard, when John pushed back, and Bruce hit something before he could find the time to adjust. The Bat slid down the wall, and for a moment, Bruce thought to help John up, disregarding his own state.  _Funny._

Bruce found the hilt of the blade, sunk to the bone in his leg, and his fingers twist around the handle. John called his name, warning him, and then Bruce yanked it out. It fell with another clank, and he breathed hard, raspy as he whispered something incoherent to the comm in his helmet as his suit reinforced itself, patching up the breech and consequently applying pressure to stop the bleeding. John slid down, perpendicular to him, and there's blood forcing a steady stream down his nose and mouth. 

"I thought I could be.. I thought I could be like _you_. I wanted to be looked at, the same way you looked at _Catwoman_." John chuckled, low in his chest, and Bruce forced the cowl from his head. Air hit his face, and he could feel the blooming of bruises and fresh blood seeping in different places. His arms were limp in his lap, and he couldn't force anything but a solemn grimace.

He wondered faintly, if this was what sparked that anger in John. Was it that John wanted to be like him, or be _seen_ by him?  _That jealousy._ Selina had been.. in the loss of Harvey, she had given him something worth while; her friendship. Once, they'd been involved— once, Bruce had found common ground with both Harvey and Selina. It was a fond _something,_ now only a distant memory.

Selina was beautiful, and someone Bruce couldn't indulge himself to have whole-heartedly, because Harvey was gone and now, only a monster stood in his shoes. It felt wrong, back then, to continue to be with her if Harvey wasn't there to be with  _them._

"I didn't need to think about her," Bruce started, losing the feeling in his fingers when he ran them over the helmet in his lap. It hurt like hell, to know it wasn't where it supposedly belonged. "..when I saw _you_." He licked his lips, metallic on his tongue, and held the urge to hide himself. Without the cowl, Bruce was left in a body that he felt didn't completely _belong_ to him. 

John simpered, looking as beaten up as any alley cat on the streets. "I don't want it to end like this, John." Bruce couldn't cover the hoarseness of his voice, or the pitiful inkling of a sob that resided there. He caused the darkness around him. "I don't want _this_ to end."Bruce corrupted people, like a disease.  _Oz, Harvey, Vicki, John._ He'd never been able to escape his father's shadow. He got the very people he was trying to protect, killed. _Lucius_. He was in all likeness to Thomas Wayne.

_Bruce._

He exhaled, the breath he'd been holding frail. The twining of a music box pierced his ears, ringing obtusely in his eardrums. It's faint, and all in his head. He could hear his mother. Fingers grip at his chin, slim and bruising, and Bruce hadn't realized it was John. His John. The same John who'd trusted him with everything, and the same that gave up heart and soul for Bruce. He hadn't realized he was crying until John ran the pad of his thumb under his eye.

Bruce couldn't see himself looking anything worth the effort of consoling, but here they are. "I never realized how much of a _crybaby_ you could be, Brucey-boy." It's gentle, the way John spoke to him, and Bruce couldn't fathom how inconsistent their roles had been today. Bruce didn't cry. He didn't, not even in front of Alfred, and now he felt like the boy in that alley, _all over again_. A pitiful noise crept up from his chest. Bruce tried to flinch from his touch.

It was too much; they were fighting, and then they _weren't_ , and now his skin burned where John touched him and there was an urgency to breathe in everything that was known as John Doe. Bruce didn't know love. He knew desperation in human contact. He knew fleeting nights, and exchanges of sex for partnership. He knew blistering nails on agitated skin. He knew something soft, something almost good, until it flickered out like a flame to the wind.

Bruce didn't know love. Not until John.

John doesn't let him hide. His fingers have a tight grip on him, running an open palm down the side of his neck and stilling at his throat. Bruce swallowed, and wrapped his hand over the man's forearm, though there's no force behind it. "You were never like everyone else, Bruce. You're.. I felt a lot of things. I  _feel_ more than I’ve ever felt for Harley."

Bruce was lulled into the touch, stomach whirling when John squeezed his throat, too tender to be cruel. He wanted to say more, but the whimper that left him, it was— John forced his mouth over his own, animalistic and overbearing, and Bruce bit back, licking up into the heat and choking down the pathetic little noises that rose up from somewhere deep within. John growls into the infusion of lips, and Bruce pined for that infatuation. 

He's never seen this side of him; it was overwhelming, when Bruce finally understood how easily he'd given into the temptation, to John's whims, and forgotten sorely of Waller and the Agency, or the people John had cut down in cold blood. He had to speak for his crimes, but— Bruce wanted to have this memory between them, because there’d be nothing left to hold onto if it wasn’t _this_. They both knew that the moment that door opened, things would go back to the beginning. Bruce was going to get him help. He wouldn’t abandon John after everything, but he had to go back to Arkham. 

Bruce grunted, hands freeing to touch at John’s shoulders, twining a gloved hand through the unnaturally green, mussed up hair. John squeezed his throat again, applying pressure to his larynx and forcing a weak purr from Bruce. Joker almost laughed, a grin spreading across his face when Bruce involuntarily bucked his hips up into the lack of pressure. John was moreover between his legs now, pressing his teeth against Bruce’s bottom lip and tightening his grip on the Wayne’s throat. 

“Good boy, aren’t you?” They didn’t have a lot of time— John whispers sweetly in his ear. They’d have to settle for kisses. John ran his free palm down Bruce’s side, and then absent mindedly, at his left thigh. The Wayne bit down a hiss, jolting some by instinct, but John has him tamed by the second stroke of his leg. Bruce almost canted against him, spine curving and looking for firmness to press himself against in a flushed array. 

“..love you.” 

Bruce hadn’t yet comprehended that it had left his own lips, until John began petting him like a helpless puppy, as if Bruce were porcelain and needed viable aftercare. “Say it again.” John ordered, though he’s still petting him and holding him by the throat, and Bruce swallowed the rebuttal edging on his tongue. He bumped his nose against John’s cheek, and the man bit at his right earlobe; a reminder of what he’d done to save Alfred, and of what Vicki had been capable of. “Bruce, say it _again_.”

Wayne or not, he was weak-willed. _Bat_ or _Bruce_ , he was soft for John. “I love you— damn it, I love you, I _lo_ —“ John slotted against him, chest against chest, and Bruce embraced him once they were close enough. The cowl rolled away from grasp. His arms wrapped around John, and the gesture was returned. Bruce buried his face in the other man’s neck, another whimper escaping him. John doesn’t hold him like before, instead his arms wrapped protectively around his lower back and shoulders. 

They stay that way, huddled together, until John cradled his head back, and the cowl slips back over his face. Bruce clung to him, desperate and body fluid in the shuddering of his spine. John smoothed back his own hair, and smiled. It was softer, and still, all John. 

 _Secret's safe with me, Bats_.

John shifted, maneuvering away, and Bruce reached weakly for him, but there’s no time. John held himself up until he propped his back against the panel. The door jerked open before them, and Agents flooded in. Bruce lost consciousness, the expression on John’s face burned under his eyelids.


End file.
